It depends on what you are going to be using the laptop for. Bought an AMD one recently and it is more than adequate for photo processing, general web surfing and office. Originally wanted an i3 or i5 but the price and availability swayed me.

Thanks all. I have an amd quad core phenom IIx4 N930 as my main laptop but looking for a 2nd one so thinking of intel.
There is a brand new Acer 5742 i3 for £299 with full warranty which I think is excellent value. I like the i3/5 because it has L3 cache.

I agree with the last post. I have been using Acers for a long time and I would not say they are more prone to probs than others. My son is still using his Acer 5920G after 6 yrs and he is a heavy user including playing games online. That said the graphics card is now out of date for the latest games.
My latest is a Packard Bell ( an Acer co.) TK87 Core i5 and it's excellent and very fast.